Proposition 24, which was designed to make the California Consumer Privacy Act stronger, has divided privacy advocates who previously fought on the same side
Prop. 24 is designed to make the California Consumer Privacy Act stronger. Why do so many privacy advocates oppose it? Tweets: @justinbrookman , @nxthompson , @jason_kint , and @wbm312 Tweets: Justin Brookman / @justinbrookman : If you're wondering why there's a new privacy ballot initiative in California, and why advocates — and the 2018 initiative's sponsors — are at odds over it, this is a solid primer from @GiladEdelman: https://www.wired.com/... @nxthompson : Fixing privacy law is really hard! So hard, in fact, that the funder and author of California's old big privacy law are at war over a proposition for the next one. Great @GiladEdelman explainer. https://www.wired.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : This will essentially be the privacy law of land after Nov 3 vote. 2yrs before fully-funded independent enforcement; regulatory teeth, makes hard for G/FB to: 1) work around user expectations to not be tracked across web; 2) locks in floor so they can't weaken w amendments, etc. https://twitter.com/... Whitney Merrill / @wbm312 : California's Prop 24 is TERRIBLE. It's messy and poorly - very poorly - written. The law should be better and shouldn't allow businesses to charge more if you opt for more privacy. https://www.wired.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
California's privacy regime has been built in a hurry and patched ever since: the 2018 legislative deal that traded the original ballot initiative for a fast-tracked bill, followed by warnings that hasty adoption left unresolved issues that industry lobbying could exploit. Proposition 24 is the funder of that first initiative returning to the ballot to fix the CCPA by fiat.
The fix has fractured the coalition that wrote the original law. Jason Kint argues Prop 24 would become California's operative privacy law, adding real enforcement and constraints on tracking by major platforms; Whitney Merrill calls it messy, poorly written, and objects to letting businesses charge more for privacy.
First-order effects
- Privacy advocates who campaigned together in 2018 now campaign against each other, with Kint's enforcement-and-tracking-limits case pitted against Merrill's pay-for-privacy and drafting-quality objections.
- California businesses face a fork: the CCPA they have built compliance around could be superseded by a new ballot-written statute the moment the vote passes.
Second-order effects
- As the Prop 24 passage and creation of a Privacy Protection Agency later confirmed, enforcement moves from the Attorney General's office to a dedicated rulemaking body — and early AG guidance like the rejection of trade groups' blanket opt-out tools shows why advocates wanted specialized enforcement.
- A win for the initiative route signals to both sides that privacy policy in California is set at the ballot box, inviting well-funded interests to draft their own competing statutes rather than lobby amendments.
Third-order effects
- If ballot-initiative lawmaking becomes the norm for privacy, statutes arrive pre-baked and hard to amend, entrenching whatever compromises each campaign struck — including contested provisions like paying for privacy.
- California's repeated layering of laws — the CCPA, Prop 24, and follow-ons like the Age-Appropriate Design Code Act — points to a permanent state of privacy rulemaking that other states and platforms treat as a de facto national standard.
The trend: California privacy law is shifting from one-off statutes to a self-amending regulatory system, with ballot initiatives and a dedicated enforcement agency replacing legislative iteration.